


Worm on the Hill of Swords

by imprimatur13



Category: Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blood, F/M, Wormfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imprimatur13/pseuds/imprimatur13
Summary: An AU where Sakura is not the Master of Rider. At this point, an introductory chapter which may remain as a one-shot; we shall see.EDIT: Another chapter appears. Let's see where things go.
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

She ached deep inside.  
The pain of the things wriggling inside her, forcing her to bow to their will.  
She didn't want to do it.  
She didn't want to sully herself like this.  
She didn't want to hurt him.

But what could she do?  
The last vestiges of her sanity were slowly slipping away, and the only thing left in her brain was an insatiable lust.  
She wanted him. She wanted his love deep inside her.  
Her stomach pushed out, her womb threatened to explode. Not because there was anything in there -- it was entirely hollow. No, it was because there was too much nothing.  
She was filled with Void, with the Emptiness of the Boundaries, and she had to get rid of it.  
She had to spill it all out of herself, and into him.

But he was so far away. She couldn't reach him; no matter how far she stretched her hand out, another hand came from within her and pulled it back. _Come to me_ , she would say. _Come to me, my beloved. I want to love you and only you, and I never want us to be separate._

_You want that too, don't you?_

He smiles at her, touches her briefly, and walks away.

_No, this isn't what I want._

She pushes her hands at her sides, balls them into fists, and is filled with frustration.

_No, this can't be what he wants. I know him, I know what he wants. He reaches out to me, touches me, kisses me. When he does it I can tell he truly enjoys it, he truly feels fulfilled._

_So why?_

_Why does he spurn me now?_

_I... I don't know. I can't know, he's closed himself off from me. I don't know what's going on inside of him._

_I need to know._

She gets up from the bed. The blood on the sheets drips slowly onto the hard floor.

_drip, drip_

As it falls it pools into a hexagram, glowing faintly.

She walks, at first stumbling clumsily. Her feet are unaccustomed to the ground. They've only known the lightness of this bed these weeks. The lightness, the airy heaven where she felt him. Deep, driving inside her.

Now it is an empty hell, and she needs to break free.

She walks more securely now, her feet possessed of purpose. She doesn't know where they lead her; her mind is too preoccupied to care.

The blood continues to drip from the sheets.

She can't remember whose blood it was, where it had come from. The events of the past days were too much of a blur, a kaleidoscope of memories that make no sense if she tries to focus on them.

She goes to the bathroom, washes her face.

Her eyes are bloodshot, despite sleeping for who knows how long.

She has a cut on her cheek.

Is the blood hers?

She doesn't know.

She doesn't care.

Only Senpai exists in her thoughts, only he can command her attention.

_Senpai... Senpai, what happened to you? Where are you? Why aren't you here?_

_How can I wake up without you by my side?_

She washes her face, rinsing off the blood from her cut.

As she goes back to her bed, she notices a pair of shoes near the door.

Senpai's shoes.

_Oh, thank goodness, he must be in the outbuilding._

She runs out, forgetting the previous awkwardness of her step.

"Emiya-senpai?" She calls out to him, heart pounding, waiting for a response. Her mind drifts to thoughts of his back, his muscular back...

She shakes her head, and goes to the outbuilding.

The lights are off.

She peeks inside, but he is not there.

Her heart is heavy with pain, and despair. Resentment.

_How could he leave me? Didn't he say that he would protect me when I'm sick? Didn't he say he would make sure nothing would happen, that I would get better?*_

She walks slowly, stumbling on the way, back to her room.

Once she returns, she sits on her bed. There is still some blood soaked into the sheets, though most of it did drip off onto the floor.

She smells the blood, sniffs it like a hungry dog.

_Senpai..._

She lays down, ready to go back to sleep. Her thoughts begin to drift.

_Senpai... I miss you. I know I'm a bad girl, I know you need to punish me, but this isn't how to do it! If you want to punish me, instead of leaving me, just hit me. Kick me with your boot. Rape me. I don't care... just stay here with me._

_I love you._

* * *

Her eyes are closed, her mind is nebulous.

She is only tangentially connected to "the World".

With just a little _flick_ , she can escape it entirely, the Spiral.

It constricts around her, wanting to pull her back in.

No, she won't let it.

She pushes out.

She hears Senpai's voice on the other side.

He sounds so mature, so manly...

He can rescue her from anything.

_Senpai, rescue me._

_Be with me forever._

_Save me from this Spiral._

* * *

She opens her eyes.

_What a strange dream..._

She sees only the ceiling, which seems unfamiliar to her no matter how many times she sleeps in this room.

It's Senpai's room, in Senpai's house, and without Senpai here she just feels like a stranger.

An invader.

She sits up. She needs to eat something, keep her strength up.

If she doesn't, she might die before he gets back.

He will get back, she knows he will.

She can smell him, even now.

_Is he close?_

Her eyes focus.

Before her, she sees a ruin. A pile of rubble at the other end of the room.

_Did... is the house falling apart? Emiya-senpai's house?_

_The house must be missing him... it must need him as much as I do. And when he's not here, it falls apart._

_Or is it because I'm here? Am I making it fall?_

_Why am I so bad? Why can I never be happy, never be saved, no matter how much I am punished?_

_No matter how much Senpai loves me?_

"Senpai," she whispers softly.

"Emiya-senpai..."

_Will he never answer?_

She sees a form on the rubble. Who?

"What a strange little girl you are."

A voice.

A man's voice.

She focuses her eyes, to see a red form. Red, like the blood on her sheet.

"S-Senpai? Is... is that you?"

She still cannot see who it is.

"Well, I can't say I know who you mean by 'Senpai', but let me ask you a question instead."

He stands up from the rubble, and walks over to her.

His steps are powerful, sure, confident.

He gets close and she can see him, see his face.

_It's so beautiful..._

He puts his face close to hers.

"I ask you," he says.

_Why do I want him? Why is he so... Why do I want to be in his arms forever?_

_Do I no longer love Senpai? Am I so fickle, jumping from one man to the next?_

_..._

_I really am bad. I don't deserve to live._

_Senpai, when you come back, please._

_Kill me._

He speaks anyway, uncaring of her inner turmoil.

"Are you my Master?"


	2. Chapter 2

His presence is erect before her, a tall, imposing figure.

He is red, but the blood of life flows in his veins.

She can feel the power he exudes.

She wants him.

But she... she can't let herself have him.

It wouldn't be right, not when her heart was still tied -- and it always will be -- to Senpai's.

"Who are you?"

He bends close to her, she can feel his hot breath on her face, like a dog's.

_Senpai, where have you gone? I want you to ravish me, dirty me like the bitch I am._

_I want you to taste my fruit and grow drunk in its juices._

"Where is he?"

"Who do you mean?" she asks, pushing herself back, away from his threatening presence.

He pursues her. "You know who I mean. _Him._ "

_I can't let him hurt Senpai. I can't let anything happen to Senpai._

"I don't know where he is," she says, standing her ground.

"Oh? Well, isn't that something," he says.

He scares her.

He goes back to his rubble throne, and begins directing her.

"It seems you are my lawful Master, girl. In that case, I should tell you how this arrangement works. Listening?"

She nods dumbly.

"Great," he says without humour. "I am a spirit summoned by a magical artefact, bound to your soul by the most high thaumaturgy. A 'Servant,' as they call us. But make no mistake," she quivers, "I am incredibly powerful, and could kill you where you stand. If I felt like it. So make sure I don't feel like it."

Her breaths grow shallow, drawing less and less air with each draught.

Her head is swimming.

His dim voice penetrates her, though.

"You seem weak, a natural victim. You have that _smell_ about you. So here's rule number two: Do not expect me to save you, or clean up your messes. If you want to get saved, then go ahead and save yourself. Or not. I really couldn't care less."

_Senpai!_

Her knees are weak, but she stands.

"And finally, _princess_ , you are involved in something whose importance you cannot even begin to guess at. So I suggest you continue to do what you're good at, and stay in bed. If I need mana from you, I'll take it. If I tell you to do something, you do it. Otherwise, you risk violating rule number one, which is... inconvenient."

He held up three fingers on a red-gloved hand.

"Got that?"

She nods.

Satisfied, he puts his hand back at his side.

Her eyes float to his hand, their gaze like a ship rocked by turbulent vortices. She can see nothing but those hands at his sides, strong hands that can fulfill wishes, if only they are given the opportunity.

But she senses that his heart does not wish it. She cannot bridge the gap between them.

But perhaps his wishes will coincide with her own? Perhaps she is only being paranoid? Her mind is weak, and is long accustomed to preying on itself when there is no one else around to prey on her.

"M-may I ask your name?"

"Why?" He retorts, the harshness of his tone tearing at the vulnerability she had to expose in order to ask him even that.

"It's more convenient that way, isn't it? I need something to call you, and, well, it wouldn't be polite to just say 'you' all the time."

He laughed. "Satisfy yourself with 'Archer', for now at least. If you knew my true name that would make things much more difficult for you, kid."

His volatility scares her. How he can be threatening at one moment, and genial the next. Her eyes closed in fear.

It reminds her of the transformation her Nii-san made. 

He was once kind to her. He loved her, and was jealously protective of her.

He always wanted to take her away from Grandfather's training sessions, and play with her.

She loved him, and was only happy when he was with her.

Sometimes she even had stupid thoughts that she might run away with him and get married.

But then, one day, he learned what Grandfather was doing with her. He learned about Magecraft, he learned that the Matou were a family of Magi, and he learned that he had been cast aside.

She tried to shield the blow as well as she could. She told him it didn't make a difference to her, that she didn't think any less of him. She tried to cheer him up, telling him in detail about how painful the worms were, how they ravaged her body, and how happy she always was when he would embrace her, take her in his arms and in his warmth she would forget everything else.

But when she explained herself to him, and could barely see his face through her tears, something changed in him. It was like a switch had been flipped. His look of anguish, the bowed head that she cradled in her bosom, the soft curls of his head that she kissed... they all departed from her. He pushed her away, and began to laugh.

The look in his eyes was unlike anything she had seen before, except... except in Grandfather's own, when she had first arrived at the Matou manor, before Uncle Kariya disappeared.

His laughs filled the silent room. The Matou manor was built with dark rooms and stone walls, off of which Shinji's voice echoed, assaulting Sakura from all sides.

"You?! You mean to _pity_ me? How _dare_ you?"

Her heart sank and bile rose to take its place.

He grabbed her shoulders, started shaking her.

She couldn't believe that her Nii-san, the only one who cared for her in this world of evil, in whom she had placed all hope of salvation, had finally turned on her.

So she didn't believe it.

She just disconnected herself from the situation.

_Nii-san isn't shaking me. He's just shaking a doll that is shaped like me. But this doll has no feeling, so it's fine._

Shinji shook the doll, whose porcelain skin and finely painted eyelashes rattled with incredible realism.

"You think you're better than me, don't you? Just because you were the one they taught Magecraft to? Well, I don't _need_ Magecraft to show you which of us is better."

He pushed the doll to the ground, and it cracked.

His face grew more monstrous.

"Ah! I know how to show you the pecking order in this house."

The doll lay still, as dolls are supposed to.

It was dark, and his precise movements were invisible, but there was a sound of metal teeth letting go of each other. Then, soft cloth falling to the floor.

Shinji crept closer.

He caressed the doll's broken cheek, and for a moment the doll thought she might be human again.

Then his hand went to her neck, and squeezed.

The doll didn't need to breathe, so it didn't.

Dolls don't react, so he soon grew bored of this.

He touched the doll's thigh, his fingernails digging deep and irreparably damaging the doll's craftsmanship.

Then he pulled aside its skirts, and after that, her records are empty.

Consigned to oblivion.

Since then, there have been two sharing this body. Matou Sakura, happy kouhai of Emiya Shirou and Tohsaka Rin. And the doll.

They have divided life's labors between them, until now. Now, neither of them know what to do.

Sakura must save Shirou, no matter what, even if it costs her her life, even if she must suffer.

But the doll will do nothing. The doll will lie, motionless, until Senpai comes back, and he does as he wills with her, nothing but a convenient vessel for his sperm.

This person called 'Archer' confuses the person called 'Sakura', and gives the doll no hope of anything -- even momentary relief of her satisfied tormentors -- to be won by her passivity, for if she does nothing, Senpai will surely die, and her only light of salvation will be snuffed.

So what will this body do? Neither of the tools it has wielded, the masks it has worn, will work.

Only one thing remains. The body of the one called 'Matou Sakura' has no strong Origin that allows it to invent personalities and scaffold them like the rooms in a skyscraper, infinite concentric circles concealing spirals leading to everywhere and nowhere. It is weak, and its powers of creation were exhausted by the two it made: One at birth, and the other at death. It requires a third for rebirth, and since it cannot make its own, it will borrow one.

Where to borrow it from? What a silly question. To save Senpai, what is needed is strength. This body has felt many things, but it has only felt true strength, the hardness of tempered steel, once.

Not in Shinji, who could only abuse a doll, but would die if that doll opened its eyes.

Not in Uncle Kariya, a man built of desire to help her, but who disappeared without accomplishing anything.

Certainly not in Grandfather, whose secrets she knew and who could not save the only person he wanted to save: himself.

There was only one person remaining, whose strength was like a shining blade that cut through the darkness of night. Only one who could sacrifice himself for others, who could sharpen his body like a razor and save anyone.

Could he save himself? 

No, no he couldn't. In fact, he didn't even care that he couldn't.

And while this caused Sakura no end of sorrow, she realized that he might be okay, as long as someone else was there to save him.

So she would be the one person who could save Senpai, and herself. The sister she had watched from the shadows, always taking everything! She had been born happy, in luxury, heir to the double inheritance that was just as much Sakura's by right, and even now, she moved to take Senpai from her too. She was kind to Sakura, but only as Tohsaka-senpai never as a _sister_. It was as if she had decided to abandon their shared past together. Could Rin have forgotten their life before the 4th Holy Grail War? Perhaps she wanted to, perhaps she _needed_ to, if she was to live her life without being bothered by poor Sakura's sufferings.

It tears at Sakura to have to adopt that mask, the mask of the sister she's always hated but idolized. The perfect, beautiful, _Tohsaka Rin_.

But she has pledged to save Senpai, and she will be nothing if he disappears. Thus she makes the final sacrifice, and discards all the sweet tragedy that she has endured. Both the girl named 'Matou Sakura' and the doll with the tag of 'Matou Sakura' on its breast die, and on their ashes she builds an imitation of splendor.

Her body communicated this wish to her soul, and without her conscious mind ever becoming aware of it, the psychic shift was complete.

She doesn't know why, but she opens her eyes, and feels vibrancy in them. Her gaze is clear, and she can see every follicle of Archer's raised eyebrow.

"What? Why are you still here?" He gestures to her bedroom door behind her. "Lie down like a good little girl."

His eyes are hard, issuing hers a challenge.

She meets their gaze with a smirk.

"Listen, Archer, you'll have to dispense with the needless formalities. I don't know who you are, but more importantly, I don't think you know who *I* am. Come over here, lemme tell you a secret, okay?"

"As if anything you had to say could matter. Why won't you just shut up and stop barking like the bitch you are?"

He turns aside, ignoring her.

She strides over to him softly, with feet light as air.

She bends close to his ear, and whispers.

"I don't know which land or era created your legend, but you were summoned by the Holy Grail, right?"

His eyes widen, but her fingers keep his lips closed.

"Though, your clothes recall the Tohsaka... Be that as it may, you must desire the Holy Grail, if you answered its call? Are you aware of its secrets?"

Archer is silent for a moment.

"What do you propose to tell me, that I, a Spirit summoned from the Throne of Heroes, a realm outside space and time, would not already know about the Grail?" he asks.

"Simple, Archer," she says. "I _am_ the Grail."

His features contort in shock. She smiles sweetly at him.

"So make sure not to get on my bad side, okay? Otherwise, it could get _very_ unpleasant for everyone concerned. Especially you."

She slaps him on the back, and moves to the wall, where she flicks on a light switch.

"Dear God," she says, "I can barely see anything in this dust. Give me a hand with that, will you?" She pointed to a folding table stacked against the wall.

Archer audibly sighs, but gets up and does as she said. The two of them unfold the table and set it in the middle of the room.

"All right." She is panting after the effort of moving the heavy table. "You're an Archer? So what skills does that grant you? Eagle eyes, and all that?"

He is unnerved. "You might say that."

"Excellent," she says, and slaps the center of the table, sending the dried blood and mucous on its lip to the ground. "I need you to find paper -- there must be some in this house, I don't care where you get it from -- and bring it to me. I'll tell you where the pencils are."

"Whatever you say, kid," Archer replies. "But satisfy my curiosity: What for?"

She looks up at him, and he sees a fire in her eyes. She is revelling in her own power. In life, he had seen the girl he called 'Matou Sakura' look like that, and it frightens him. The plague of Angra Manyu had then turned her to the mother of black mud, and he was disoriented. He can't let that happen again. He doesn't know what's causing her to act this way, but he knows he has to stay by her side and do whatever he can to save her from that horrible fate. This is important enough to forget about that idealistic fool for now; Sakura's disease is far more potent to the masses.

He is disoriented, though she can't know why.

"Why, maps, Servant. I trust you can take a detailed look at the city, pinpoint concentrations of magical energy, and so on. It's time to begin our war council."


End file.
